This episode takes listeners on a journey through some of the most absurd and fascinating news stories. We highlight the ongoing battles between Harvard and the Trump administration, delve into the unique narratives spun from Florida’s notorious news cycles, and consider the implications of diversity in political appointments. It’s a thought-provoking look at how these issues intersect with everyday American life.
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Dana Lash’s Absurd Truth Podcast, sponsored by Kel-Tec.
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It’s his life mission to make bad decisions. It’s time for Florida Man.
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That’s right. It’s time for Florida Man. This is the Dana Show. My name is Craig Collins filling in. Thrilled to be with you. First, Florida Man is Olivier Ryu, who is a 7’9 Florida basketball player for the Florida Gators. He didn’t actually play this season, even though they won the championship. He was redshirted because he’s developing some of the skills that might be lacking fundamentally in a guy that’s 7’9 inches tall. But they expect him to be very good next year for that team. He met President Trump. Florida man in the White House, seven foot nine, hanging out and having a conversation. Here’s how Trump reacted to the giant human that stood next to him for a sec.
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And you’re a beautiful looking guy. Yeah, it’s really today.
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What a big advantage. That’s going to be in life. Trump is not short and his son is not short. And still, Olivier Rieu is gigantic. He’s huge. He’s actually the kind of dude who can cut down the championship nets without getting on the ladder at all, which is something you might have seen after Florida won the national championship. If you were watching, you’re like, who’s that giant dude? They weren’t playing. That’s that’s this guy out of Canada who is hopefully going to be good, but at least going to be ridiculous to see regardless for that school. All right. Other things out there as far as Florida man stories go. A Florida man was accused of setting fire to a strip club and throwing a urine filled bottle at a police officer. This is the kind of story that only comes out of Florida. It actually is coming out of Tampa. The Pink Pony Showgirls Strip Club in Tampa had a crazy thing happen at 5 a.m. on a Wednesday. You feel like anybody who’s hanging out at Pink Pony Showgirls at 5 a.m. on a Wednesday is the kind of person that might make certain life decisions. This guy’s name is Arvin. He’s 29 years old. He did, as I said, set fire to the building because he was upset at an experience he had inside the club, and he then started to throw empty bottles that he had urinated in at officers as they were trying to arrest him for being an insane, horrible, terrible person who does horrible, terrible things and makes all the other people that were at Pink Pony Showgirls at 5 a.m. upset. I don’t know how many people that is, and I don’t know what the plan is to, you know, respond to it, but I feel like this isn’t over. I feel like more is coming out of this story, and none of it’s going to be good, and all of it’s going to be terrible. There’s a simple rule that nothing good happens after, like, 2 a.m., and it’s usually true, and I feel it’s especially true in Tampa on a Wednesday. Another story out there, one last one for a Florida man. A Florida woman actually struck a man in a MAGA hat at a Largo Park before battering an officer. Sometimes women seem to think that the rules don’t apply to them. I guess Laura Elizabeth Garrett, who’s 33, thought she was allowed to get mad at a 72-year-old dude in a MAGA hat. And so after a confrontation and Laura demanding that he think what she thinks, no matter what it is they were talking about, I’m sure it was a lot of stuff. She hit him and she attacked him. And that’s going to cause some issues. And then when the police got there, she also attacked them, which is probably going to compound the situation. It will be unsurprising to many people. But Laura has blue hair. entirely blue hair that looks sort of ridiculous. I don’t know that she went the expensive route in getting it dyed that color, but she’s also someone who’s obviously very much of a certain side of the political aisle, which is not common in Florida, by the way. I feel like Laura lives her life fighting with a lot of people a lot of the time. I lived in Florida for a few months. I had planned to live there longer, but I lived there for a few months. And then eventually I moved to Texas in Houston, where I am now. And I remember one of the first things I saw when I got there was a dude shirtless, driving a motorcycle with a Trump flag attached to the back of it, just waving in the wind. And that dude was feeling good about himself. And I think it was like 2 or 3 a.m. since I was driving from somewhere else when we were relocating to Florida for a bit, which is a story for another day. But I remember seeing that and thinking to myself, yeah, I’m in Florida. I’m in the place that Dana talks about a lot on the radio. And I wasn’t sad about it. Laura, this person in this story, probably is. Quick break. A lot more. Greg Collins filling in on The Dana Show.
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Hamas releases its last American hostage just hours before Trump’s trip to the Middle East. Lefties in the media now insist they didn’t hide Joe Biden’s decline, it was their sources who lied. And Homeland Security is investigating whether Los Angeles County gave our Social Security benefits to illegals. I’m Greg Karumbas, inviting you to join Jim Garrity of National Review and me each weekday for the 3 Martini Lunch podcast. We’ll give you the good, bad, and crazy news of the day, and hopefully a lot of laughs too. Follow the 3 Martini Lunch on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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All right, let’s talk about something that’s causing a rift and even some pushback from his own side of the political aisle, President Trump’s fight with Harvard. This is the latest move. A DHS letter from Kristi Noem to Harvard says that they’re no longer going to be able to have foreign students. In fact, students that are currently there with F or J visas are going to have to transfer to another school to keep the visa or the visas being taken away. How is the Trump administration validating, or at least how are they claiming that it’s valid, that they’re going to do this? They said the campus is unsafe. And this part I easily agree with. The Trump administration says that Harvard has allowed for a very anti-Semitic, very anti-Israel sentiment to exist on their campus, that certain students who come from other countries enhance racism. that problem. And this is probably the most important caveat of it. Harvard has been absolutely unwilling to work with the Trump administration and some of its requests, demands, whatever you want to call them, to gain more information about that. The Trump administration, this government they want, DHS, information about what students are coming, what countries they’re coming from. They go into Harvard and more background information about it. And Harvard is unwilling to give that information until, say, it would be too late and people are here in this country. And the United States wants to stop that. Now, look, I get every objection to this as like this is too far. This is trying to act like a dictator. I understand those or saying that, you know, penalizing certain students or whatever it might be. But here’s the part that I find good or uniquely interesting about stories like this. Trump is absolutely willing to make someone the demonstration of why you should follow the rules so that everyone else behaves differently. And Harvard is trying to stand up against him for whatever political or, you know, I guess, optic win they think they’re getting. But Harvard doesn’t get as many federal dollars if it decides to fight the federal government. That’s simply true. It doesn’t mean that the United States is shutting Harvard down. Of course, it’s not doing that. And it doesn’t mean that Harvard can’t recover the money and funds and all the things that are being taken away from them by the federal government some other way. And it’s not even a huge part of the money that exists in that university anyway. But this is just showing them the extent of power that the U.S. government has. And essentially, all of this goes away if Harvard starts playing ball as far as the DEI initiatives go, as far as any of this stuff. But they want to stand firm. They want to stand tall and say, we can resist. We can, you know, say no to you. And this is the byproduct of doing that within the rules that exist in this country. It’s not going to go further. No one’s breaking any laws, though, in deciding to change things this way or that way and couching them. And I’m sure that’ll be challenged in court as to whether or not what I just said is actually factually true. And we’ll find out if someone decides it somehow isn’t. But nonetheless, and this is the thing I do support. The idea that if you want to mooch off of our government in some way, shape, or form, and you wind up getting kicked in the teeth for it, especially if you’re bragging about doing it, that it kind of sounds like it’s a self-inflicted wound. Even if the way they’re kicking you in the teeth is a way I wouldn’t personally do it. I don’t like government taking control of things that it shouldn’t have control of. But again, it’s not really totally doing that. All right, let’s play some audio. This is a CNN interview. This is a Harvard professor who melts down over the outrageous, awful, authoritarian decision by the Trump administration. Well, this same guy and people just like him, people who work at that school, would love to be invited on to television to brag about the ways that they’re fighting the Trump administration. They’d love that. They want the publicity of that. They want to be the tallest person in the room of short people saying, look at me, look at me, I’m great, because I’m fighting back. And sometimes when you fight back, the bully punches harder.
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this decision that Harvard can no longer enroll foreign students and existing foreign students have to transfer or lose their legal status. What’s your reaction to this?
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I think it’s awful and it’s outrageous. It’s another pattern of the Trump administration taking authoritarian actions. In the United States, the president does not have the power to punish people, target people for punishment because he doesn’t like their politics. And he’s targeting Harvard because he thinks he politically disagrees with them. It’s a political vendetta. And he’s doing this on the back of students who were admitted to Harvard from around the world for their merit, for things that they accomplished in life.
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Here’s what’s amazing about this being a thing that people are saying, because on its face, I agree again that you shouldn’t try to enforce your will by any means necessary. However, they’re literally talking about the guy who was almost sent to jail in New York for a case that absolutely wasn’t a felony, has never been tried as a felony before. A business, you know, accounting error, if that’s what the Trump companies would say it was. And if New York says it’s something else that got inflated from typically, you know, a misdemeanor charge to a felony without the explanation of what it was to try to throw the political opponent of Biden into prison. so that he couldn’t run, and the only case that actually got that far. So politicizing and fighting and showing strength by using any sort of loophole you can find is absolutely something that the left constantly does, that Harvard, I’m sure, does all the time. They find a way to maximize every federal dollar they get, even when they don’t need all the federal dollars. even when they’d be just fine without them. And a lot of organizations do it, and a lot of organizations feel they’re smart for doing it. But when you depend on that, when you use those sort of things, you can also stand up in the middle of the room and say, by the way, I hate you. Now give me more money. It usually winds up being a thing that causes conflict. And so, again, I know that Harvard’s being made an example of, and I know that Trump is trying to tell the entire United States, play by our rules, especially our DEI rules, which I firmly believe in. I think he’s absolutely right in trying to get rid of DEI.
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And now, all of the news you would probably miss. It’s time for Dana’s Quick Five.
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That’s right. It’s time for the Quick Five on the Dana Show. My name is Craig Collins filling in. D-Lash, Dana Lash Radio. Two great ways to stay connected to her and everything going on with this show. First, this is kind of ridiculous. ABC News, their news boss, has told The View to tone down the Trump bashing. Guess what? It’s not good for the ratings. Unsurprising. This has continued to happen. And actually, what’s also hilarious is that it’s May of 2025. And that’s when news of this story gets out. Not, I don’t know, when Trump wins reelection by also winning the popular vote. Something people thought he couldn’t do. You feel like at some point the decision makers would be like, you know what? We can just at least skip some of these topics. Just not talk about them instead of continuing to make most of our audience or some of our audience mad. Because I doubt much of that audience that cares would even be left at this point. But nonetheless, they’re continuing to try to tell them to rein it in. That story is interesting out there in the world. Also, revolutionary new contacts that are being created in China. That would allow you to basically have night vision without ridiculous goggles on your face. That’s another thing out there in the world. It sounds kind of intense. To be honest, if everybody had night vision, I don’t know if it also would ruin your day vision. If someone just popped a light on, would you have to rip the contacts out of your eyes to see again? I’m not sure. But this seems rough. This seems to be something that’s not going to be invented for any sort of good reason. It sounds like it’s invented for ninjas or some other thing like that. I don’t mean to say that, but my brain couldn’t help me from saying that. That’s where it went, and darn it, I’m okay with it. Another story out there that I thought was amazing. A guy graduated from the University of Buffalo in New York with a baby in his hands. He asked before, and I’ll play some audio of him talking about it, if he could bring his infant son with him. And his infant son was dressed up in his own graduation gown. So both people matching outfits walk across the stage to accept a diploma. But here’s the ridiculous part. He was being slowly chased by a police officer because the day of the event, the venue tried to not let him carry his baby onto the stage, citing some sort of, you know, safety concern. Stupid rules enforced by stupid people who seem angry is something I hate in society. And it seems to have plagued this whole situation here.
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I’ve asked last semester if I could walk with my baby in commencement prep session. And they were like, yeah, it’s okay. No one’s going to tell you no. But they said it was a safety hazard. They don’t want the baby on stage. I won’t walk then. And I ran. That’s what I did. I promised him I’m going to walk with him on the stage or run with him on the stage. I have nothing against UB. I love UB. I graduated from UB. I’m doing my master’s right now at UB. It’s a great college.
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He got a standing ovation from the audience when he walked across the stage with his baby in a matching gown, graduation gown. So, of course, that made sense. And some moron who’s like, nah, the rules apply here. It’s too dangerous. This baby might not make it across the stage is someone ruining things. And you know these people in your life. They’re angry. They’re upset. They’re, you know, horrible to be around. And they spread that misery in whatever way they can, mostly by, if they have the power, enforcing stupid rules at stupid moments. They definitely exist. And I get so fed up with these people and even trying to deal with them a little bit. any sort of conversation with them because it’s an absolute nightmare. All right, one last thing. You can tell I’m uniquely mad about that. One last thing that I thought was interesting out there. Jennifer Lopez is being sued for copyright cases involving photos of her So essentially, she put up photos of herself on social media that she didn’t take. It is her, and she is like wandering around. And someone else who took them is like, how dare you use my photo of you? This would be the weirdest thing to deal with in the world of being a celebrity. Because no matter how much I understand, the law would allow someone to sue for this. It would feel real stupid if I was the person that was putting up photos of me. And someone was like, how dare you use that photo of you that I took? I would be like, come on, man, it’s me. If I don’t exist, there is no photo. So again, I’m not saying she’s right to be mad, but I’d be mad too. All right, quick break. A lot more. This is Craig Collins filling in on The Dana Show. The mayor in Chicago, his name is Brandon Johnson, has been viral multiple times over the last few days for crazy stuff he is saying. Mostly because he seems proud that he hired a bunch of people based on their race. He hired a bunch of people into this administration, the one currently running Chicago, because they’re black and he’s a black man too. And so now that he’s getting in trouble for that, even though he bragged about it as he was doing it. He’s upset. He’s like, how dare the Trump administration comes after me because they also disagree with me. They also, you know, politically don’t like me and find something that I actually did wrong and try to hold me accountable for the thing I did wrong. Let me play a little bit of Brandon Johnson’s audio. But this is amazing.
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You know, as far as, you know, the president’s animus towards Women, people of color, working people. We have always known who he has been. This is not a surprise. He’s a monster. Period. End of statement. We have the most diverse administration in the history of Chicago. And he is threatened by that. You can tell when someone is fearful is because they act out. We have a president that is screaming and having tantrums right now because we have an administration that reflects the city of Chicago, but he would much rather have administrations that reflect the country club.
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It is ridiculous. Every part of this is ridiculous. My favorite part is when he says that someone who behaves at all is someone acting out because they’re afraid. So that means anyone who takes any action for anything is afraid. And that’s why they’re behaving the way they’re behaving. Even say like a cop who’s stopping someone from killing someone else. That cop was terrified. That’s why he did what he did. And that cop might actually be scared. But nonetheless, that’s not why you take the action. uh… sometimes you take action because people are doing things that are bad and you want them not to do the bad things anymore and by the way when he says that his current administration reflects the population of chicago oftentimes an excuse used by people to say they do things the way they do them The truth is that the majority of people that live in Chicago are actually white. About 36 percent of Chicago is white people. Twenty nine percent is black. Seven percent is Asian. Point one percent is Native American, et cetera, et cetera. There’s other races. A lot of people who describe themselves as Hispanic might also describe themselves as white, by the way. So significant population and diversity. They’re not exactly reflected. in the Brandon Johnson administration. And so here’s what’s so funny about all the virtue signaling and all the ridiculousness of these sort of conversations. They don’t have to exist. And what I mean by this, and I’m not trying to help the bad guys do their bad stuff better. Politicians need the political win of hiring people that don’t look like me, a white guy. They desperately want it because if they didn’t tout it, if they didn’t brag about it, if they didn’t celebrate it, they could do it and no one could object to it. If they told us everyone they hired got their jobs solely based on merit, I’d have nothing to be upset about. Now, I could be suspicious that that’s not true and I could talk about it in a different way. But the fact that they admit it and they admit it because they know that it’s politically advantageous to them with their voters, that they want voting for them is the thing that causes the problem. Because when you use simple logic, you understand easily it’s not a good policy. You shouldn’t hire anyone based on their race or their sex. That’s not why they should get a job. They should get a job because they’re good at something. And anyone who wants to yell at a radio or me or anyone else saying that, how dare you? If that’s true, then the people that have these jobs won’t get them. Well, then they don’t deserve them. If they can’t get a job based on merit, they shouldn’t get a job based on something else. And if you think they’re not getting evaluated fairly, we can have that discussion by proving it, not just saying that you think it exists. You have to prove that it’s true, which means that whoever gets the job, you have to demonstrate how they’re not as qualified as someone who didn’t get the job. And then we can do this on a case-by-case basis, and we can figure it all out. But anyway, I’ll stop ranting about this. I just think it’s ridiculous that this is the kind of conversation we have in society so much. And it emboldened so many people on a certain side of the political aisle to say things that are like evidently racist. I know people that will look at me and say they hate white dudes to my face. And like, I can’t fathom saying that to someone else to look at them and who they are and whatever their race, sex, anything is and be like, hey, I hate everybody that looks like you. And yet people can do it to me, to my face and not worry about any ramifications from it.
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Thanks for tuning in to today’s edition of Dana Lash’s Absurd Truth Podcast. If you haven’t already, make sure to hit that subscribe button on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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